Restoring Sitecore Databases

Valid for Sitecore 5.3, 5.2

Sitecore provides a tool to be executed on the database server which simplifies restoration of the SQL Server backups (MS SQL Database Restore Tool). Determine configuration values needed to fill the fields before executing the database installation tool. Depending on machine specifications this tool may take some time to execute; because of the potential for SQL timeouts do not use other applications on the machine until restoration is complete.

If you haven't got a right to run the SQL restoration tool on a server, or don't want to use it for some reason, you can use the script available on this page.

Download SQL database restore script.

The queries of this script have the following format:

RESTORE DATABASE [sc53Archive] FROM DISK = 'C:\MSSqlServer2000db\scArchive.bak' WITH MOVE 'scArchive' TO 'C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\SQL2005db\sc53Archive.mdf', MOVE 'scArchive_log' TO 'C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\SQL2005db\sc53Archive.ldf';

Find-and-replace the 'sc53' prefixes and the backup file paths with the ones you need.